


a place to rest my head

by asp-iro (sunfiree)



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Fluff and Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 14:01:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19465483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunfiree/pseuds/asp-iro
Summary: “What?” he manages to force out, voice loud and harsh anddesperate, but he can’t help it, can’t help digging his fingernails into his clenched fists, the sharp bite anchoring him back to reality, to this reality where he’s lost his wife to a choice he had made, this guilt eating him away as slow and as painfully as it could, this reality where his sister-in-law is talking abouttaking his eldest son away from him.Amaya worries about Callum after Sarai's death.





	a place to rest my head

“What on earth is going on here?” he asks as he steps into Callum’s room, gesturing to where it looks like Callum’s dumped half of his wardrobe’s contents onto the floor. Most of his tunics and trousers are shoved haphazardly onto the bed, some folded neatly, but others discarded with the rest of his belongings in a sad pile near the half-open wardrobe door.

Amaya straightens up from her position hunched over the floor, brushing off her armour as she stands. “Callum’s packing,” she signs, then immediately turns away as soon as she’s done, continuing her task of shoving some more of Callum’s clothes into a travel bag.

He grits his teeth at the dismissal – she can’t read his lips if she’s turned away, and it feels odd, being on the receiving end of this gesture of hers, when most of the time he and Sarai are ( _used to_ ) laughing at the usual victim. (Viren). And even though he _knows_ that she’s not here anymore, he still thinks he can almost feel her breath against his cheek, hear her loud, unbridled laughter filling up the room, and he shakes his head, trying to clear his thoughts away.

“And why is he packing,” he asks, nerves frayed.

“He’s coming with me.” Amaya dumps the bag on the bed, striding over the mess on the floor to look Harrow in the eye as she signs, as firm and unyielding as a lighthouse in a storm. It’s a quality he admires when she’s General Amaya –a one-woman army, in charge of hundreds of soldiers of the Breach– but something he _hates_ when she disagrees with him over a matter involving their family. Especially now, when Sarai was no longer here to mediate. When Viren was locked away in his study doing gods know what for hours and hours on end. When the whole world had flipped on its axis, leaving him lost and unanchored in this new, unfamiliar life of his, one where he was suddenly solely responsible for his two sons (one grieving, one too young to understand the emotion, only the emptiness) on top of an entire kingdom.

“To go where? The _Breach_?” he asks, incredulously.

Amaya gives a short nod, newly sharply cut hair brushing her chin, and she crosses her arms over her chest, the sound of the armour clinking together filling the room.

“Listen,” he says, and Amaya huffs out a breath of air, mouth twisting down, and he rephrases, “I mean – Look. I know you want what’s best for the boys, but taking them with you to the Breach is too dangerous. Even though it _is_ a good idea for them to get away from the castle for a while.”

“You’ve misunderstood,” she signs. “I’m not taking Ezran anywhere. I’m taking Callum away to live with me at the Breach. It’s not ideal but –”

And as his mind catches up to translate her, the rest of his body is already aware of what she’s saying and he has to reach out an arm to brace himself on the doorway so he doesn’t stumble, and all he can hear is the frantic pounding of his pulse against his ears, drowning out the rustle of Amaya’s armour as she moves and the faint, far-away sound of swords clashing together as soldiers train outside, and only then does he start understanding what she’s trying to say, what she’s trying to _take_ from him.

“What?” he manages to force out, voice loud and harsh and _desperate_ , but he can’t help it, can’t help digging his fingernails into his clenched fists, the sharp bite anchoring him back to reality, to this reality where he’s lost his wife to a choice he had made, this guilt eating him away as slow and as painfully as it could, this reality where his sister-in-law is talking about _taking his eldest son away from him_.

And it’s so different, yet exactly the same, the same helplessness, the same fear, the same way he’s frozen in his own body, breath caught in his lungs, unable to do anything. Swords and gold, power and influence, connections and wealth and status, all meaning nothing again, nothing at all in the face of death and loss and _grief_.

Amaya’s hands stop in the middle of the air, frozen on their last word. “Did I just hear you correctly?” he asks her, hoping for her sake he hadn’t.

“Unless you’ve suddenly become the deaf one, I think so.”

“What right do you think you have that you can take Callum anywhere?” he asks, feeling a familiar anger grow in him, a rage which has been stewing and stewing since the last flicker of fire burnt out on Sarai’s funeral pyre.

“I’m his aunt,” signs Amaya, emphasising the “aunt” movement, sharp and precise. “And Sarai would’ve wanted – ”

“Sarai would’ve wanted him to be raised _here_ , with his brother, with his friends!” he says, before she even finishes.

“He needs a parent.” 

“And he has one!” he says, voice cracking pathetically, and he feels like he’s been bitten, chewed up and spat out as a facsimile of himself, a walking ghost, only a shadow of the man he thought he was. And it’s all more than he can handle right now, more than he could ever handle, truth be told, but he knows, he knows down to the very deepest part of his heart, that he can’t let Callum leave. “He’s. _My_. _Son_. You have no right to come here, only days after Sarai’s funeral, and talk about taking Callum away! Ezran needs him. Katolis needs him. _I_ need him. And I can’t lose him, too, Amaya. Not after Sarai. They’re all I have left. Please, Amaya.” 

Amaya stares him down, hands still and silent. Harrow thinks he can make out the relaxing of her jaw, though, the softening of a frown, and he feels hope well up in him, terrifying in its intensity. “And if he wants to come with me?” signs Amaya.

Harrow breathes out, slowly, feeling absurdly wounded at the thought. He steels himself, regardless. “If it comes to that,” he says, pained, “I’m a selfish man. And I’m his king – no, no. I’m his father. He stays here.”

And here it is: the answer it seems she was searching for. Amaya smiles, a closed-lip, subdued substitute of its usual self, but a smile nonetheless. Her eyes crinkle up with the force of it, and it reminds him so strongly of Sarai for a moment that he finds himself unable to draw breath into his lungs.

“I know you,” signs Amaya. “You’re a good man. But I knew you as a good man to my sister. I didn’t know whether you were to my nephew. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to leave him somewhere he felt unwanted.”

He finally relaxes, releasing the line of tension in his shoulders as much as he can, and gives Amaya an answering smile. “Thank you for looking out for him,” he says, sincere, grateful.

“You don’t get to say that,” signs Amaya. “He was my nephew first and I would do just about anything in this world to keep him and Ezran safe. With Sarai gone, I feel this even more.”

“You’re right,” he says, ashamed. He forgets sometimes that for a while, it was only Sarai and Amaya and Callum, that he only came later, much later, in their collective story. “I’m sorry. It seems apologising is all I’m good for nowadays.”

Amaya rolls her eyes, not unkindly. “I’m trusting you with my nephews. That shows you how much I expect of you.”

And it feels _so good_ to hear that, sparking a sort of warmth that blooms up, overshadowing the heart-sickness he’s felt for the past week. Amaya’s respect means the world to him, but her trust in him to raise her nephews feels monumental, and he feels, for the first time, not out of his depth at the thought of raising his sons by himself.

“I understand,” he says to Amaya. “But this ends here. He’s my son. That will never change.”

“That is all I ask for,” she signs, and puts her hand on his shoulder, the weight steady and comforting. And he knows he’s not the only one grieving, but it’s hard to leave his head with its all memories to remember that Amaya lost a sister. A best friend, another part of her soul. He puts his hand on top of hers, squeezing tightly. And they stand like that, side by side, shoulders pressed together in front of the window of Callum’s room, taking in the sight of the sun setting in the distance, stealing away the last rays of the day’s light with it, far, far away where they couldn’t reach, and he thinks he can still hear the echo of Sarai’s voice in the wind, see the colour of her hair in the night sky.

**Author's Note:**

> chapter 1 of 2.
> 
> second chapter will be uploaded soon.


End file.
